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Weather for Fantasy Fiction

Weather is a great tool to
use for writing. You can add subtle symbolism to sway the senses, making scenes
dramatic. Humanity versus nature is a never-ending struggle, and a great story to
exploit.

When fantasy world building,
consider planetary atmospheres. It affects seasons, tides and climate, as will the
earth size, tilt, orbit and moons.

TEMPERATURE

An approximate temperature
for Earth’s coldest point is -70° C (-90° F). This is at the poles during their
winter.

The highest temperature is
roughly 50° C (120° F).This is at the equator during summer. You can make your
world more extreme than this.

WEATHER

The sun will always be there
during the day. The only things stopping nice days are suspensions, precipitations
and wind.

A - SUSPENSIONS

Suspensions give readers
a feeling of mystery. The reason for this is, as the air isn’t clear, people sense
that achieving the stories goal won’t be clear either.

· Fog

· Mist

· Cloud

B - PRECIPITATION

Precipitations do two things
to readers. They can find them romantic, like during passionate scenes of kissing
in the rain. They can also find them threatening, like being stuck on snowy
mountains. This adds tension, when characters aims seem impossible.

· Rain

· Hail

· Snow

C - WIND

Wind Speed Scales

There are many wind speed
scales in use across different regions of the world. I have tried incorporating
them all, to give a good scope of how destructive winds can be in your fantasy
world.

Wind at the equator will
go west, whereas at the poles it will travel east. This means that any mountain
ranges act as rain barriers. Towns with no protection from the elements have more
volatile weather than those behind the barriers.

Wind speed depends on the
size of your planets. Small planets will have reduced wind ferocity, while larger
planets will see big storms. In addition, if your world has a greater water
frequency than earth, then there will be more storms.

Winds can last a few seconds
to a month. They can also travel a maximum of 10,000 km before fading. Even the
fastest winds will slow over time. This is because they aren’t constantly going
in one direction. Faster winds will normally whirl in circular motions, with one
direction dominating.

The below scale uses a variation
of the Beaufort Scale, which measures wind speed, the Saffir-Simpson Scale, which
is for hurricanes and the Fujita Scale which is for tornados. I left one personal
error in there. I could not confirm where I got one of the hurricanes speed. Sorry.
Everything else is factual. I think these little mistakes can help writers think
of new ideas.